Wilmette community buys wheelchair-accessible van for needy family

Residents, organizations and businesses helped purchase van for family of 6-year-old Addie Kurtz

September 13, 2012|By Brian L. Cox, Special to the Tribune

Addie Kurtz, 6, and her mother Cathy check out the interior of a wheelchair accessible van that residents and businesses in Wilmette and Glenview pulled together to buy for the Kurtz family. The van was given to the family during a Sept. 4 ceremony at Cunliff Park in Glenview. (Brian L. Cox, Chicago Tribune)

The fire truck that pulled into Cunliff Park in Glenview last week with its emergency light flashing and siren blasting was not headed to a fire.

It was delivering a gift. Behind the truck was a silver wheelchair-accessible van that residents of Wilmette and Glenview, as well as local organizations and businesses, had pulled together to buy for the family of 6-year-old Addie Kurtz, who is suffering from a rapidly degenerative neurological disorder called Batten disease.

"It's not something I would have asked for myself," said Addie's father, David Kurtz, his voice cracking with emotion. "I just feel very blessed to have such good friends and neighbors and co-workers who have all been able to contribute."

The grass-roots campaign to buy the van was launched about a month ago by the Glenview family's neighbor, Ben Wozney, who is also a lieutenant with the Wilmette fire department. Addie attends Romona Elementary School in Wilmette.

Addie's illness has left her confined to a wheelchair, and she is being fed through a tube. Wozney said he has seen the struggle to put Addie into the family's car or old passenger van, so he wanted to raise money to buy a wheelchair-accessible van with a hydraulic lift.

"My daughter has autism," he said. "We know the kind of struggles that people have when they have kids with special needs. I just really couldn't watch anymore, them picking her up and putting her in their car or van."

He brought the idea to his bosses at the fire department, the Wilmette Fireman's Association and his neighbors. Once the campaign started, donations to buy the used $8,500 van poured in.

"People started writing checks and dropping them off at my house," said Wozney.

David Kurtz, his wife, Cathy, Addie and her 3-year-old brother were at Cunliff Park Sept. 4 for an emotional ceremony as the Ford Windstar wheelchair accessible van was given to the family.

"I can barely talk," Cathy Kurtz said.

"She doesn't know this is all her for her," David Kurtz said of his daughter. "It would be a little too much for her to absorb."

He also said that lifting the 50-pound wheelchair and his daughter in and out of their old van several times a day is difficult and was made ever more complicated in recent months after he broke his arm.

"That's a big chore every time," he said.

Kurtz said Addie was diagnosed with Batten's disease about three years ago. While she can't speak, she is fully cognizant of conversations.

"She used to run around just like every other little girl," he said. "Her favorite activity used to be to tackle her little brother."

Glenview resident Willa Arntz was among the roughly 30 people who turned out for the ceremony. She donated as soon as she heard about the campaign, she said.

"I'm a retired nurse, so it was easy for me to do something," she said. "It's hugely important because you have to be able to safely transport the patient, but you also have to make it safe for the caregivers."